Rock 'n' roll, Slides of Music

Download Rock 'n' roll and more Slides Music in PDF only on Docsity! 62 R 8 E T P A H C Rock ’n’ roll : A GENERATION’S IDENTITY � � The rise of rock ’n’ roll in the mid-1950s transformed the landscape of American popular music, further cementing the popularity of southern-derived styles ultimately derived from the blues and country music, and transforming the teenager into both a marketing concept and a cultural icon. Rock ’n’ roll records were played for dances at inner-city, primarily black, public schools, for parties at predominantly white suburban private schools, and for socials in rural settings catering to young people. If you were young in the 1950s in the United Statess, no matter where you lived, no matter what your race or class, rock ’n’ roll was your music. The advent of rock ’n’ roll music in the mid-1950s brought enormous changes to American popular music, chang es whose impact is still being felt. Styles that had remained on the margins of pop music began to in filtrate and eventually dominate the center. Rhythm & blues and country music recordings were no longer directed to specialized and regional ized markets; they began to be heard on mainstream pop radio, and many could be purchased in music stores nationwide. ­ ­ ­ The emergence of rock ’n’ roll was an event of great cultural sig nificance. But several issues demand our attention: first, rock ’n’ roll was neither a “new,” nor indeed even a single musical style ; second, the rock ’n’ roll era does not mark the first time that music was written specifically to appeal to young peo ple; third, rock ’n’ roll was certainly not the first American music to fuse black and white popular styles. ­ ­ The new audience was dominated by the so-called baby boom gen eration born immediately following World War II. It was a much younger target group than ever before, a large audience that shared specific charac teristics of group cultural identity. These were kids growing up in the ­ ­ 1950s, a period of relative economic stability and prosperity marked by a return to socially and politically con servative ways. This was also the first generation to grow up with televi sion; this new mass medium proved a force of incalculable influence. ­ ­ The term “rock ’n’ roll ” was first used for commercial and genera tional purposes by disc jockey Alan Freed. In the early 1950s Freed dis covered that increasing numbers of young white kids were listening to and requesting the rhythm & blues records he played on his nighttime program in Cleveland — records he began to call “rock ’n’ roll .” Freed ­ ­ New York disc jockey Alan Freed coined the phrase “Rock ’n’ Roll.” 63 promoted concert tours featuring black artists, playing to a young, ra cially mixed audience, and promoted them as “rock ’n’ roll revues.” The term “rock ’n’ roll ” itself was derived from the many references to “rock in’” and “rollin’” found in rhythm & blues songs and on race records. ­ ­ The purchase of rock ’n’ roll re cords by kids in the 1950s proved a way of asserting their generational identity through rebellion against adult standards and restrictions. Thus the experience of growing up with rock ’n’ roll music became a defining characteristic of the baby boom generation. So it is not sur prising that the music catered to this age group, which by the late 1950s had its own distinctive culture and its associated rituals: school and vacation (represented in songs such as “School Day” and “Summertime Blues”), fashions (“Black Denim Trousers and Motorcycle Boots” and “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yel low Polkadot Bikini”), social danc ing (“At the Hop” and “Save the Last Dance for Me”), and courtship (“Teen-Age Crush,” “Puppy Love,” “A Teenager in Love,” and “Poor Little Fool”). Some rock ’n’ roll songs — for example, “Roll Over Beethoven” and “Rock’n’Roll Is Here to Stay” — an nounced themselves as emblems of a new aesthetic and cultural order, dominated by the tastes and aspira tions of youth. Rhythm & Blues Three prominent African Americans represent the rhythm & blues-based side of rock ’n’ roll . Chuck Berry was a songwriter/performer who ad dressed his songs to teenage America (white and black) in the 1950s; Little Richard cultivated a deliberately out rageous performance style that ap pealed on the basis of its strangeness, novelty, and sexual ambiguity; and Fats Domino’s work embodied the continuity of rhythm & blues with rock ’n’ roll . Domino was the earliest of the three to become an established performer, but all three crossed over to mainstream success within the first few months following the mas sive success of the white rocker Bill Haley’s “Rock Around the Clock.” The biggest rock ’n’ roll star to come from the country side of the music world was Elvis Presley. In 1955, RCA Victor, a major label, set about trying to turn the “hillbilly cat” into a mainstream performer without compromising the strength of his appeal to teenagers. They succeeded beyond anyone’s expec tations. Although Presley’s televi sion performances were denounced by authorities as vulgar, the shows ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ Left : Chuck Berry broke racial barriers with tunes such as “Johnny B. Goode” and “Maybellene.” Center: Little Richard is known for his piano stylings and exuberant vocals in “Tutti Frutti,” “Good Golly, Miss Molly,” and other classics. Right: Fats Domino’s hits include “Blueberry Hill” and “Ain’t That a Shame.” Left: Founding Beach Boys (l. to r.) Mike Love, Al Jardine, Brian Wilson, Dennis Wilson and Carl Wilson became known for their close vocal harmonies. Right: Berry Gordy founded Motown Records. With his unmatched ability to discern popular taste, he launched the careers of many popular music giants. E ventually branch out totally beyond the traditional forms, sounds, and lyric content of rock ’n’ roll to create something truly different and unique. The reference point that most people would use for constructing a model like this would probably be the Beatles. But the group that first established this model, and did so with outstanding success, was the Beach Boys. The Beach Boys were in fact a clear, and stated, model for the Beatles, especially during the re markably productive and innovative years (for both groups) of 1965-67. Motown The music of the 1960s includes a remarkable spectrum of styles and influences. In Detroit, Berry Gordy Jr. was creating his own songwrit ing/producing/marketing organiza tion. Motown was named after the “Motor town,” Detroit, the automo bile production capital of America. It came to be one of the most stunning African-American business success stories. The intensity and duration of Motown’s commercial success re flected the distinctive dual thrust of Gordy’s vision. ­ ­ First, he was determined to keep all of the creative and financial as pects of the business under Afri can-American control. This worked because Gordy had an uncanny abil ity to surround himself with first- rate musical talent in all aspects of the record-making process, and to maintain the loyalty of his musi cians for substantial periods of time. It also worked because Gordy had a shrewd head for business as well as for music, and this leads us to the second element of his visionary plan. Motown’s music was not directed primarily at black audiences. Gordy sought to make an African-Ameri ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ • ­ ­ ­ can pop music addressed to the wid est possible listening public. ­ It is almost as if Gordy launched his enterprise as a kind of counterof fensive against the expropriation of African-American music and the exploitation of African-American musicians that had been as much a part of the early history of rock ’n’ roll as it had been of other periods in the development of American popular music. And the unique ge nius of Gordy was the ability to cre ate a black music aimed right at the commercial mainstream that never evoked the feeling, or provoked the charge, of having sold out. With few exceptions, Motown recordings avoided direct evocations of earlier rhythm & blues forms and styles; 12 bar blues patterns are strikingly rare, as are the typical devices of doo-wop or anything suggestive of the 1950s sounds of Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, or Little Richard. Yet a generalized ­ ­ ­ ­ 66 blues or gospel manner remained a defining characteristic of Motown’s performers; sometimes it could be very subtle, as is often the case with William “Smokey” Robinson, and sometimes much more overt, as is the case with Martha Reeves. This proved sufficient to give a definite African-American slant to the pop- structured, pop-flavored songs that were characteristic of Motown. Ray Charles and Soul Music Even as Berry Gordy’s Motown re cordings defined one stream of 1960s popular music, another hugely talented artist was defining the path that would lead to the “soul” music that appeared later that decade. Ray Charles was a constant presence on the rhythm & blues charts during the 1950s, but major crossover suc cess eluded him until 1959. Charles was never interested in being type cast as a rock ’n’ roll er, and he never consciously addressed his record ings to the teen market. As soon as he established himself as a mass- market artist with the blues-based and gospel-drenched “What’d I Say,” in 1959, he sought new worlds to conquer; his next record was a high ly individual cover of Hank Snow’s 1950 hit “I’m Movin’ On,” one of the biggest country records of all time. Within a year, Charles had achieved his first Number One pop hit with his version of the old Tin Pan Alley standard “Georgia on My Mind.” Charles was not the first artist to assay many different genres of American popular music, and he was only one of many to achieve crossover success. What is it then that made his career so distinctive, that made him such a universally ad mired pop musician — by audiences, critics, and other musicians — that the appellation “genius” has clung to his name for decades? Part of it is the astounding range of talents Charles cultivated. He was a fine song-writer, having writ ten many of his early rhythm & blues hits, including classics of the genre like “I’ve Got a Woman” and “Hallelujah I Love Her So.” He was a highly skilled arranger, as well as an exceptionally fine keyboard play er who was fluent in jazz as well as mainstream pop idioms. And above all he was an outstanding vocalist, with a timbre so distinctive as to be instantly recognizable and an ex pressive intensity that, once heard, is difficult to forget. But this still is not the whole story. Charles’s most char acteristic recordings are not only distinguished, individual statements but also unique and encompassing statements about American popular music style. Although the term “soul music” would not enter the common vo cabulary until the later 1960s, it is clearly soul music that Ray Charles was pioneering in his gospel-blues synthesis of the 1950s. He is now widely acknowledged as the first important soul artist, and his work proved an incalculable influence on James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Curtis Mayfield, Otis Redding, Sly Stone, and innumerable others. When Charles went on to record Tin Pan Alley and country mate rial in the 1960s, far from leaving his soul stylings behind, he brought them along to help him forge new, wider-ranging, and arguably even braver combinations of styles. ­ ­ ­ Ray Charles was a Grammy-winning singer who blended gospel and blues in heartfelt ballads like “Georgia On My Mind .” ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ 67 The Counterculture and Psychedelic Rock The explosive entrance of folk rock into the wide arena of American popular culture coincided with the development of increasingly innovative approaches to rock ’n’ roll itself. This was a period of in creasing political restlessness and ferment in the United States. The youth audience for pop culture was directly implicated in the politics of the Vietnam War, as all young American men between the ages of 18 and 26 were eligible to be drafted into the armed forces. In addition, a significant number of young people were involved with the many orga nizations, demonstrations, and legal initiatives that characterized the civil rights movement. ­ ­ During the late 1960s an “alterna tive” rock music scene established itself in San Francisco. The city had long been a center for artistic com munities and subcultures, includ ­ ­ ­ ing the “beat” literary movement of the 1950s, a lively urban folk music scene, and a highly visible and vocal gay community. “Psychedelic rock” encompassed a variety of styles and musical influences, including folk rock, blues, “hard rock,” Latin music, and Indian classical music. In geo graphical terms, San Francisco’s psy chedelic music scene was focused on the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, center of the hippie movement. ­ ­ Jefferson Airplane was the first nationally successful band to emerge out of the San Francisco psychedelic scene. Along with the Quicksilver Messenger Service and the Grate ful Dead, Jefferson Airplane was one of the original triumvirate of San Francisco “acid rock” bands, play ing at the Matrix Club (center of the San Francisco alternative nightclub scene), larger concert venues such as the Avalon Ballroom and Fillmore, and at communal outdoor events such as happenings and be-ins. The Airplane’s 1967 LP Surrealistic Pil ­ ­ ­ low sold over one million copies. The biggest celebrity in the group was vocalist Grace Slick (b. 1939), who was the most important female mu sician on the San Francisco scene. ­ Grace Slick’s only serious compe tition as queen of the San Francisco rock scene came from Janis Joplin (1943-70), the most successful white blues singer of the 1960s. Joplin came to San Francisco in the mid 1960s and joined a band called Big Brother and the Holding Company. Their appearance at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 led to a contract with Columbia Records, eager to cash in on RCA’s success with Jef ferson Airplane, and on the growing national audience for acid rock. Big Brother’s 1968 album Cheap Thrill reached Number One on the pop charts. Joplin’s full-tilt singing style and directness of expression were inspired by blues singers such as Bessie Smith and by the R&B re cordings of Big Mama Thornton. ­ ­ ­ ­ Left: The Jefferson Airplane in 1966. Right: Janis Joplin. 68